


Everything Comes Back to You

by stockholm_syndrom



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Geralt deserved to retire and pick flowers, Geralt gets to pick all the flowers (Jaskier included) hurr hurr, M/M, Time Travel/Alternate Universe, but geralt has a beard, game!geralt/netflix!/jaskier, i don't mention it, inspired by my time picking flowers in witcher 3, retirement fic, this is old man!Geralt/netflix!Jaskier, two old men make a house into a home
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:15:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23579032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stockholm_syndrom/pseuds/stockholm_syndrom
Summary: Old Man Geralt decides that for his retirement, he'll go back in time to pick Jaskier and then flowers, in that order.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 67
Kudos: 517





	Everything Comes Back to You

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the Witcher short stories and games, where I spend a lot of time just picking flowers. My Geralt is a bit of a mix of that way into the future, whereas Jaskier is just where we left him at the end of episode 6 in the netflix show. 
> 
> A big thank you to Serene Is Locked In The Tower who came up with the title and helped me with the summary and gave me the courage to post this fic!

Witchers don’t retire, they die. That's how it's supposed to go. And Geralt is tired, has been tired for a long long time, at this point it's habit more than anything else that has kept him going. He isn’t even sure how old he is anymore, but there is an injury to his left leg and one to his right shoulder that won't heal completely anymore, and he has gotten stiff, clumsy. He knows what happens to witchers when they get slow, what he should let happen.

It probably won't take more than a handful of fights until a monster gets the best of him. He doesn’t mind the idea, has always been resigned to this end. It isn't just his body that's tired, at this point he has survived most of the people he has loved, and he is so alone. A though grows, however, despite himself, of what it could be like to retire. To hang up his swords. But only if he won’t have to do it alone.

So he finds a djinn. He is well aware of how stupid this is, but truly, he doesn’t give much of a fuck. And he asks the djinn to bring him his friend back.

Dandelion asked him once, if he could love someone ordinary, or if it was only Yennefer for him. He thinks now, that he didn’t hear what the real question was. Maybe because he was so caught up in the scent of lilacs and gooseberries, or maybe because Dandelion had never been ordinary to Geralt. It’s been a century since they had that conversation, lying in the same bed and neither quite able to speak their mind, even in the dark.

Dandelion isn’t the only person Geralt has loved, there was Ciri who he loved most of all, and Yennefer who he always will ache for, but he is old and he is tired, and he no longer yearns for a love that burns so bright it hurts. Yen’s power will hold her young for as long as she wishes, but Geralt’s running out, and it’s made it easier to let go.

Now, here, at the end of all things, he wishes for the ease of companionship, of a love that heals, wishes that he could once more turn his face and see that familiar feathered bonnet move towards him in a crowd, always so happy to see him, always choosing to come back to him. A love that was so easy it took you by surprise, but that he never took for granted.

“I just have one wish, with the rest I'll grant your freedom. All I ask is to retire, to grow old with Dandelion at my side again.” He tells the djinn.

Well, no one can bring the dead back to life, so the djinn sends him to another place, another time. It takes Geralt a while to understand what has happened, and when he does he laughs. Oh, this could go very wrong indeed.

Geralt tracks down Dandelion, and he almost weeps as he sees him at eighteen years of age running headfirst into trouble and adventure, into a younger Geralt.

This is where Geralt should be the bigger person, he already had his time with Dandelion, it's more than greedy to ask for more, to take this from, well, himself. He should find a way back to his own world, or retire here and put Dandelion out of his mind.

He won’t, though, gods help him he is too selfish to leave.

But there is no rush, as Dandelion is still so young. He didn’t come here to travel the world anew, he came to settle down, and he wants Dandelion to be free to love and live and have his youth and his adventures. All Geralt hopes is that he will get to join Dandelion in the softness of age.

So he stays and waits, catching glimpses of Dandelion as he ages, attends concerts and competitions, places he knows he won't run into his younger self, admiring from afar, waiting for the right time to approach.

To pass the time and earn coin Geralt takes simple contracts, but most of the time he gathers herbs and flowers to sell mages and herbalists, or makes healing concoctions for villagers. It earns him enough to get by, and it’s a fulfilling trade, bringing healing and help of a gentler kind to people.

When Geralt finally approaches Dandelion, he has been waiting for this moment for over twenty years.

When Geralt goes to introduce himself, it feels like the comfort of meeting an old friend, an old love. His soul sings ‘hello you, it’s been so _long’_ , but there are nerves there too. This Dandelion calls himself Jaskier, and he is the same, but different. More vulnerable sitting there drinking alone, than Geralt ever remembers Dandelion being. Jaskier already has a Geralt, one he has shared decades and memories with, and there is no reason to believe that Jaskier would prefer him, older, more scarred, the same but different.

And Jaskier might be in his forties, but oh how young he looks. Gods, did Geralt approach too soon? His Dandelion would never have imagined settling down with someone at forty, back then he was still running around acting twenty. But, he can sense somehow that Jaskier is different.

Or, are those the excuses of a tired old man? Because he can’t, he just can’t stop himself from approaching, now that he has seen him from up close.

\----------

Jaskier doesn’t know why he is in Oxenfurt, it’s not his home, not exactly, but he came here due to a need for something familiar, once he had walked down that mountain and left the life he had lived with Geralt behind. He is tired, and more than a little heartbroken, and he could do with a bit of a rest and a familiar place to gather his thoughts.

It’s been almost a year since he last saw Geralt, enough time for the worst of the pain to fade, but a sense of sadness still lingers. How can it not, when you looked at the man you love, the man you made into a home, and told him you would follow him, that you wanted to have a _life_ with him, and he heard you, but he… just didn’t want you the same way. And that was, that was alright, but then it turned out he didn’t even want _you_ around anymore either.

Jaskier looks up when a man sits down in the chair opposite him. He knows the man instinctively, some part of him sighs, ‘oh there you are’, when their eyes meet. He would recognise that soul in whatever form it took. The recognition means it takes him a while before he realises this isn’t his Geralt. The Geralt in front of him looks to be in his early sixties, maybe, and he is scarred in different ways. He is still deadly handsome, Geralt would always be beautiful to Jaskier, no matter what. But Jaskier can tell, from the look in his eyes, by how tired they are, that this man has been alive for a very long time.

Jaskier sits in silence, his head cocked to the side and waits for Geralt to speak. At first, Geralt just sits and breaths him in, eyes greedy and lungs drawing in a familiar scent, before he begins. Geralt holds nothing back, tells Jaskier where he has come from, that this world has two Geralt’s.

Geralt tells Jaskier why he is here. That he has risked everything to come for him, that all he yearns to do with the years he has left, is spend them at Jaskiers side, in whatever way he would have him, friend, lover, husband.

“At the end of it all, it all came back to you.”

Of course Jaskier is overwhelmed. And distrustful. This is everything he wished for, how could it be true? But age made Geralt a patient man, he can wait for Jaskier to trust him, trust this. He isn’t used to this man in front of him doubting his love, and he wants nothing more than to put in the time, to prove that Jaskier can trust this. They may have loved each other for decades or centuries, but at the same time, it’s all completely new. They will have to get to know each other anew. Geralt can’t wait.

Once they get past Jaskier’s shock, and fear that this is too good to be real, Jaskier takes Geralt to the coast. It’s a bit of a test run, for Jaskier, a way to see, to know, if Geralt means it, if he could be satisfied with a quiet life.

Geralt can.

\-----------

Geralt isn't one for bigger cities, but he wants Jaskier to be happy, so they live in Oxenfurt where Jaskier supports them as a professor.

After a year or two when they have saved up their money, they get a small house by the coast, and Jaskier drops a few classes so that he doesn't have to go into the city as often. Now he spends more time at home composing or grading papers on the porch, while Geralt works outside.

They have a garden and some animals that they can live of off. Geralt tends to them and it’s good, to provide for Jaskier this way, to keep their house stable and food on their plates, to live a life where his hands only provide care and love. Geralt visits Nenneke and receives seeds for a herb garden most mages would kill for, and when Jaskier complains he can’t pick any of the pretty flowers without ruining Geralt’s trade, Geralt plants him a rose garden outside their bedroom window.

It's a good life, a life Geralt knows he wasn’t supposed to have, a life he defied fate to take. When he is up late at night, he thinks, a life I _stole_ from myself. “Is it still stealing if Jaskier came willingly? if no one came to claim him?” he asks the sky, but no one answers. But as the years pass and their commitment grows, he stops caring if this makes him a selfish man or not, Jaskier chose to stay, and his opinion is the only one that matters.

Geralt, the one belonging to this time, comes back for Jaskier after a while, and Jaskier travels with him again from time to time. A part Jaskier is still young and hungry for adventure, and Geralt encourages it, wants Jaskier to live his life to the fullest. Geralt is happy to wait for him, to keep their home running, solitude sits well again when he knows it’s temporary, that Jaskier always returns.

\----------------

Jaskier is different, when Geralt tracks him down in Oxenfurt. Humans change with age, Geralt knows that, knows he has been away a few years, but it’s still a surprise. It’s not a bad change though, there are some silvers in his hair, but most strikingly, there is a calm contentment in Jaskier’s eyes. A new surety to him, like the ground below him will always be steady. He smiles all the time now, just like he used to when Geralt first met him. Breathing in the scent of his pure contentment, even though Geralt knows it isn't him that inspired it, makes Geralt almost buzz.

They spend a few months travelling, Geralt kills monsters and Jaskier writes songs, and things are good, and when they split up Geralt is sad to see him go, but he returns. The next time they travel it takes them through a few larger towns and Geralt notices that Jaskier has turned down every advance thrown his way, and he finally asks him, “why?”

Jaskier hesitates, but then with a bashful smile, he tells Geralt that he is “quite loved up, actually”, but doesn’t offer any more details. Geralt takes his word for it, but whenever they meet the only scent that lingers on Jaskier is his own, so the relationship can't be too serious can it?

**Author's Note:**

> Inspred by the poem:  
> "And then my soul saw you and it kind of went, "Oh, there you are. I've been looking for you." — I Wrote This For You, by Iain Thomas.


End file.
